


The Sword Swallower

by GoddessofBirth



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Implied abuse, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Season/Series 04, Promises, Unhealthy Relationships, eichen house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 20:29:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2481401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofBirth/pseuds/GoddessofBirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beautiful, bright, stupidly good Chris, who keeps swallowing Peter's darkness again and again, never seemingly touched by it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sword Swallower

They lie on the forest floor, on a bed of leaves and sponge moss and the occasional rock. The rocks make Chris grunt and rearrange, even as Peter grumbles like the brat he is at every shift of the body beneath him.

He currently has his head resting on Chris' chest, the steady thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat loud and grounding against Peter's ear. Chris. Beautiful, bright, stupidly _good_ Chris, who keeps swallowing Peter's darkness again and again, never seemingly touched by it.

It's unnatural, and disturbing, and _perfect_ , just as disturbingly perfect as the unruly, overgrown mess of hair Chris had sported on the day they'd first met. It's all gone now, of course, sheared military short in his latest capitulation to that bastard he calls a father.

It's okay. Peter understands about bastards and the holds they can have. After all, his sister is just as much of a bastard. And Peter loves and wants to please her just as desperately as Christopher loves and wants to please his father. He's unsure, however, if either of their parental figures actually love them back.

He suspects, in the end, they're really just tools.

Chris shifts again, the hair of his leg dragging rough along the inside of Peter's thigh, then soothes Peter's grumpy mutter with the slide of fingertips up his spine.

“Do you think we'll have to kill each other one day?” The break in the silence is unexpected, even if Chris' question is not – they're hunter and wolf; that particular scenario is never far from mind – and he jerks in surprise before settling. Chris huffs out a small laugh before resuming the stroke of his hand up and down Peter's back.

Peter wants to say no. _Of course_ no. They never, ever could. But Peter only lies when it suits him, and he makes a point of never lying to Chris. It's one of those things. Like the sun rising, or the full moon ripping his insides out, or Talia making him feel like a burdensome piece of shit. So he shrugs instead.

“I don't know. I hope not. But I could go crazy.” He's already halfway there even if he likes to pretend he's not. “And God knows you're on the fast track to becoming a brainwashed asshole.”

Chris makes a low, humming noise, seemingly undisturbed by Peter's bleak prediction. “I don't think we will.”

And there's the stupid he loves so much about Christopher Argent. He says as much, and Chris just hums again as he pulls him closer.

There's silence again for a long time. Peter amuses himself by watching the patterns of filtered sunlight make a motley of Chris' skin, by lazily tracing them with a fingertip and smiling smugly every time he hits a ticklish spot and Chris shivers.

Until Chris tenses for real, like he _should_ have earlier. But then nothing about Peter scares Chris as it should. The only thing Chris is ever afraid of is himself. Well, and his father. But at least _that_ fear is completely founded.

“What?” Peter pushes up on his elbows so he can see Chris' face.

“Friday. He says Friday's the day.” And Peter knows what he means. Knows that's the day Chris is supposed to forge his own silver bullet. Become a _man_. Step fully into his role as hunter and soldier. Knows that's the day Gerard will _send him away_ to live or die on his own two feet.

“No.” For all of Peter's pragmatic talk of reality, his visceral reactions are much, much less logical. “No. _No_. I can't let you leave. I _won't_. You said. You _promised_.”

“I know. I'll be back.” Chris smiles but there's no humor in it. “I bet I'll find you married with your own pack, though. Ten kids biting your ankles.” Peter fucking hates kids, and Chris knows it. “Talia's gonna want you to.”

The unspoken hangs between them: that what Talia wants, Talia gets. She's very like Gerard in that way.

“I won't,” he says. Even if Chris doesn't come back, he won't. He promises himself that. He can't let Talia win at _everything_.

“Okay,” is all Chris says. It's neither reassuring, nor comforting, but Chris burying his face in Peter's neck _is_ , and Peter will take what he can.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“But I can't let you leave, so...” Peter's voice is a cool, slimy counterpoint to the ember heat of his hand against Chris' cheek, the side of his neck. A distraction from the rank smell of the sewers and the sharp-edged pain of the two broken ribs his last encounter with the wall had given him.

Then Peter _impales_ him. Drives a fucking piece of re-bar right through his body and into the cement behind him. As white hot agony shoots through his limbs, then re-centers on the boiling, burning, tearing inferno in his abdomen, Chris allows that Peter's gotten far more effective with age.

He loses track of Peter's voice after that, wavering in and out of consciousness until Peter wraps his hand around the back of Chris neck and presses their foreheads together. Even then the only thing that really sticks is Peter's too gentle _rest now_.

Rest. It's been _so long_ since Chris has rested. Today, he realizes, is a good day to die.

* * * * * * * * *

It's been two years since Chris left Beacon Hills, and he wouldn't be back now, except Isaac had asked. And it's so rare that Isaac asks for anything - still conditioned with the fear that asking might lead to pain - that Chris hadn't had the heart to say no.

And as to why he's _here_? That answer is both too simple and too complicated to dwell on.

The guard unlocks the cell, and Peter looks up instantly, his eyes bright and unfocused and wild. Peter is well and truly insane these days, product of the early days of his imprisonment, locked up with Valack. And while Chris can readily understand the need Beacon Hills had felt to punish Peter, to make him _suffer_ , he can't forgive Deaton for that particular cruelty. A bullet between the eyes would have been kinder. And wiser. Peter's insanity shouldn't have anyone counting him out.

Chris sits down in the chair across from Peter and waits until the guard leaves. The second the door closes, Peter blinks, and while his eyes are still burning and feral, they're now focused with pinpoint intensity on Chris. Chris holds his stare, doesn't look away.

“ _Christopher_.” His name rolls off Peter's tongue, dry and dusty and ragged. He doubts Peter has many visitors these days. “I hadn't heard you were back in town.” His eyes flicker downward, to where Chris has his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. “How's the side?”

Painful. Still burned whenever it rained. Not healed right due to the fact he'd never rested long enough for it to do so. “Just peachy.”

“Finally found Katie Kate Kate, then? Tell me, did you re-use the grave? Seems the economical thing to do, wouldn't you say? Can't be wasteful in these cautious times.”

He hadn't. Kate's ashes were spread to the seven winds, over their family's ancestral grounds in France. The Calaveras had made him behead her while they watched, forcing the fulfillment of their agreement to the letter. Just one more thing he's fairly certain he won't come back from. But he does his best.

When he doesn't answer, Peter rolls his shoulders, turns his head to the wall, and stares at it intently as he speaks. “If you're here for our next round, you'll have to give me a few weeks. I haven't _quite_ figured my way out of here. A few weeks, though.” Then he whips his head lightening quick back to Chris.

“Do you think we'll have to kill each other one day?”

Chris tastes honey and dirt and chap stick against the back of his tongue. “I don't think we will.”

Peter seems pleased, a gash of a smile opening up across his face. “Oh, you beautiful, brilliant, _stupid_ boy. I was right, you know. About it all.”

Chris shakes his head. “No. I came back.”

“True.” Peter spreads his hands across the table, his fingers just over the halfway point to Chris. Heavy cuffs encircle his wrists, wolfsbane infused and attached to chains leading away to wall. Chris focuses on Peter's face instead. “You do keep coming back. Even when I prefer you stay away. It's annoying.”

Chris flattens his palms against the cool steel of the table, too, his fingertips pressed firm and blunt against Peter's. “I promised.”

“Christopher.” Peter lets the name hang for a long moment as he studies him. Chris sits patient. Waits. From what Deaton had said, one has to do a lot of waiting for Peter's words these days.

“You swallowed too much.” That's Peter's inexplicable follow up.

“What?”

“I told you to rest. But you just keep swallowing.” Peter's eyebrows are furrowing and his nostrils are flaring.

“Peter, I don't -”

“I told you to _rest_!” Peter roars it, springing across the table at Chris, only to be jerked back short by the chains around his waist and ankles. Chris can hear the sound of pounding feet down the corridor. “I said you couldn't leave and I told you to rest and _you didn't listen_. You _never fucking listen_! And now you've swallowed too much and it's _not even mine_!”

There's spit flying from Peter's mouth as he strains, chest heaving, against his bonds, and with the way his eyes are rolling Chris isn't sure he's even _seeing_ him. Isn't sure what Peter's seeing at all.

“Peter --” The door crashes open, interrupting Chris. A half dozen orderlies fill the room, surrounding Peter and shoving him back down into his seat. He fights them, fights to reach Chris, even though the cuffs are cutting into his wrists with a sizzling, smokey sound.

“I'm going to kill you, Christopher Argent! I'm going to get out of here and I'm going to find you, and when I do I'm going to rip your insides out! Do you hear me, Argent? I'm going to bury you right next to your bitch of a wife and your pretty little Alli -” An orderly finally manages to get a needle into Peter's neck and the words strangle off in his throat. He slumps in the chair as the sedative hits his bloodstream, and Chris closes his eyes for a long moment before shoving his own chair back and standing.

“I'll be back,” he says. Because he will be. He always is.

Peter's head lolls as he watches Chris go. “Argent.” The word is distant and woozy, but Chris turns around anyway. Peter blinks several times, clearly struggling to stay awake and focused. “Argent,” he says again. “I _am_ going to kill you.”

Chris, ever conscious of the ears in the room, regards him solemnly before shaking his head. “I don't think we will.” Then he turns on his heel and walks from of the room. Just as the door clangs shut, Peter's voice drifts out and catches him, causes a stumble in his stride before he recovers.

“ _No, I don't think we will_.”


End file.
